


Swing

by tragakes (lejf)



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Swing Dancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-09-08
Packaged: 2020-10-12 16:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20567474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lejf/pseuds/tragakes
Summary: It’s the 1940’s. Bucky’s one hell of a dancer, so naturally, he teaches Steve.





	Swing

Bucky loves swing dancing; he likes jazz, and it’s real easy to learn. He swings gals around the ballroom, caught up in the rhythm of the music, the clack of his shoes, panting and smiling as they go around and around. 

“Alright,” Bucky says, wetting his lips, considering. They’re in the living room, barefoot. It’s summer. School is out so Steve isn’t drawing all day and they’ve got time to clown around. 

Steve’s got his two top buttons undone and looking up at Bucky. Just seeing him makes Bucky smile. 

“We got a lead, and a follow. Obviously you’re gonna wanna learn how to lead, so I’ll follow when you learn, okay?”

“Sure,” Steve says. 

Bucky takes a step forward, closer, and is glad to see that Steve doesn’t rear back or anything like that. “Hand on my back.” Steve’s dextrous little hand slips around Bucky’s back as a warm spot of connection resting just under his shoulder-blade. “Lower,” Bucky laughs. “Just… there. Perfect.”

He rocks back into the hand, feeling it apply pressure as Steve tries to keep him where he is. “That’s it,” Bucky says. “No nails, flat palm. This — ’s our crucial point of connection. As lead, you’re calling the shots, and you’re not gonna be whispering in her ear what you’re planning to do next, so you’ve gotta let it be known by little pushes or pulls at where you’re connected.”

Looking at Bucky’s mouth, Steve says, “Okay.”

“Other point of connection,” Bucky says, raising his left arm and setting it on Steve’s bicep. The height difference is a little laughable because the lead is usually so much taller, but Bucky doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to mock Steve, and it’s nice to be touching him like this. He lets his arm rest against Steve’s. 

They’re standing close together now, not facing each other, but connected at Steve’s right shoulder and at Bucky’s left. 

“And… hold your hand out.” Steve does — his left one. The right is against Bucky’s back. Bucky slides his right hand into Steve’s offered hold. “Just like that. Keep it loose and easy. Now, we’re just gonna rock together, okay?”

“Okay,” Steve says again, looking at where their hands are connected. 

They don’t have a record-player in the house, so Bucky just sings a beat out loud. Dum, da-dum, dum dum du-dum dum. Eight counts, standard. His low voice fills the room and they just sway together, connected at three hot points. 

Step left, left the other foot follow, step right, let the other foot follow. Bounce to each pulse. It’s nice to hold Steve. Steve has his head down and is watching their footwork. He’s a quick study, though, and soon Bucky teaches him to rock step, which is easy enough, then teaches him to turn rock. 

“If you want to turn, pressure on the back, alright?” Steve does, pulling Bucky closer to him as they turn on the spot. Bucky laughs when Steve tugs too hard, pressing their chests together briefly, and they continue. Everything is close, intimate, Bucky’s voice winding between them, just gently rocking. Steve’s a bit timid, light on the hold, not bouncing with quite enough dedication, not really putting his entire _body_ into it, and Bucky talks him through until they’ve learnt an outward turn as well and Bucky has to duck his head to get through it. 

Steve smiles when they dance, though, and Bucky smiles too, as if it wasn’t obvious enough when he was singing — and hopes they’ll do it again.

*

Steve asks to dance nearly every day. 

He gets really into it, now, and it’s a passion that Bucky really loves. “You’re becoming a good follow,” Steve teases him, and Bucky just wags his eyebrows. 

“A good dancer knows how to follow _and_ lead,” he says, just as Steve spins him out and he kicks at the end of it, lowering his weight, crossing his feet, following the triple. 

They swing out, triple in, a fast and fleeting turn where Bucky slides straight into Steve’s waiting hand and Steve pivots on his right like an opening door, confidently taking Bucky with him to send him out again, connected by one hand, in and out, close and open. 

They pick up the pace, swinging around and around, Bucky sliding into Steve’s arms again and again, swapping positions like two orbiting stars. When they finally circle in, Steve’s laughing because it’s wild and fast. Bucky feels lighter than a feather as they manage the full turn in its fast triples. 

They take to the actual dance floors not long after that. Bucky leaves Steve to find a partner and doesn’t get ten paces before someone asks him to dance. Bucky obliges, taking her hand and leading her to an open space in the room. He glances back at Steve when he does — remembering that he hadn’t told Steve about floorcraft, but it’s intuitive enough that Steve will probably know it already. Just simple things like finding open spaces, apologising if you bump into people, asking for dances and taking rejections politely — but when he looks back, Steve is watching him and smiling, and his words die in his throat. 

The dame is an excellent follow, and Bucky soon finds himself flying on his feet, hitting the ground hard and fast, his entire body swirling with the music, flying in and out, a crazy high-paced swing where in the finale he picks her up and swings her for a full flip. They finish the dance both flushed with the exertion, he thanks her, and quickly goes off to look for Steve. 

Steve’s got a partner, and Bucky beams as he sees his best friend take to the floor. He’d worried that Steve would have no one to dance with, but with that fear set aside, he relaxes. 

Time to dance the night away, then.

The ladies pass by in a mesh of memory. Slow dances, high-tempo dances, wicked dances — Bucky is familiar with all forms of songs, and knows how to mould himself to fit each of them perfectly. Subdue his kicks to the moods, put more distance for the wide swings, press close and let his moves become languid for the slow. Each song is different, but Bucky can fit them like water. He gets asked to dance for every single song that comes on until he’s exhausted. They all know, whether it’s his looks or his energy, that he’s the most popular lead on the floor. 

And they go dancing nearly every night. 

They split their seperate ways and go through dame after dame, though Bucky seeks out Steve’s position on the floor and sometimes they play games with it, spinning their partners to each other, or matching their moves, and Bucky bursts with pride to see that Steve is becoming so _good_ at it. He gets tired fast, though, and usually takes breaks after each song, but his skill is enough to have a willing partner each alternate song. 

And when Steve is standing there on the sidelines, his gaze heavy and obvious on Bucky’s shoulders, Bucky is sure to put on a show. His hips have a mind of their own and his feet carry him like he’s skimming across water. The band on the stage has an alto-sax, a trumpet, a trombone, a bass, an old well-charactered piano, a set of drums, and a lady in a red dress singing into the microphone with enough fanfare to raise the roof. Bucky sings to the songs as he swings as well; hits the breaks like each one will be his last, giving his follow the slightest push so she’ll know to spring apart from him and really give the floor hell. Then they shoot back into each other’s arms and use the momentum to whirl around and around and around. 

When he looks over, breathless, at where Steve is standing, Steve is smiling. All the nights could pass like this, and Bucky would cherish every one — this chaotic, energetic, frenzy. 

*

Fireworks, the American flag, a huge slowly-turning globe, and buildings that could easily be from ten years in the future. It’s the Stark Expo of the future alright. 

The night before Bucky’s set to ship out, he sets them up with dates each: Bonnie and Connie are waiting. He’s a bit annoyed to find that they’re not as interested in Steve. Steve’s already in a bad mood since he won’t get shipped out, and it’s Bucky’s job to cheer him up. 

But all in all, it’s a minor setback, and it’s not like Bucky can find anyone else now — he’ll just have to make up for the attention that they lack. Which is why his gut drops when he turns around after Stark’s big show and Steve _isn’t there_. 

Bucky shuts his eyes furiously for a moment — c’mon, Steve — and tries to feel out where the hell his best friend is through sheer willpower alone. When he opens his eyes, he’s facing into the crowd, and is flummoxed for a moment before he spots, beyond the heads of all these people, a recruiting poster. 

Okay, goddamnit, Steve. Sure, Connie might not be that interested, but you’ve gotta step up to the ball and _get_ them interested.

Excuse me, coming through, he says as he wades through. The recruiting building is much quieter than everywhere else, and Bucky just has to wander for a brief moment to see Steve standing on one of those projector things that mirrors your face onto a soldier’s one. Steve is too short for it, and Bucky can see the scrunched look on his face that he makes when he’s feeling down, so he hurries up behind him and gives him a playful shove that steps him off of the projector. 

“C’mon, kinda missing the point of a double date. We’re taking the girls dancing.” It’s the best thing Bucky can offer. Steve loves to dance, ever since Bucky taught him how. It’s been four years since then, and he knows that Steve still goes dancing sometimes even without Bucky. 

“You go ahead. I’ll catch up with you.”

Bucky could groan out loud. Steve’s got that stubborn look again. That dumb stubborn look that gets them into so many back alley fights that Bucky has never managed to discourage him from picking. The best he can do is teach Steve to box so maybe he won’t get his ass handed to him each time.

But still, it’s Bucky’s last night. Is Steve gonna do this to him? He wants them to dance, and he really doesn’t want to leave on a bad note. He sighs, squares himself to Steve, and says, “You really gonna do this again?”

“Well, it’s a fair. I’m gonna try my luck.”

Smart-mouth. “As who, Steve from Ohio? They’ll catch you, and worse, they’ll actually _take you_. 

“Look, I know you don’t think I can do this—“

It’s not about whether or not he’s capable! Bucky wishes Steve wouldn’t fixate on proving himself. “This isn’t a _back alley_, Steve, it’s war.”

Mulishly, Steve says, “I know it’s a war, you don’t have to tell me it’s a war.”

“Why- _why_ are you so keen to fight? There are _so_ many important jobs. “

“What do you want me to do? Collect scrap metal in my wagon?“

If it’ll keep Steve away from the front lines? “_Yes_, why not?”

“I’m not gonna sit in a factory.”

“I don’t–“

“Bucky. _Bucky._ Come on. There are men laying down their lives. I’ve got no right to do any less than them,” Steve says. It sounds like a line from one of those programs they run on the radio to encourage people to enlist. It makes Bucky’s blood boil. “That’s what you don’t understand. This isn’t about me.”

“Yes it is, Steve, it _is_ about you if you have to enlist forty times just to go there and _get shot_.”

“It’s about the men out there, Bucky. If I get shot, that’s a bullet I took that someone else didn’t have to. It doesn’t matter what happens to me.”

“‘Course it matters what happens to you! Are you out of your mind? You’ve got _nothing_ to prove.” 

“Hey Sarge, are we going dancing?” he hears Bonnie call. 

He turns around, has to drop the aggression to reply, carefree, “Yes we are.”

When he turns back to Steve, his anger’s diffused somewhat, and that stubborn look is still on Steve’s face. They could stand here all night arguing, or Bucky could let him do what he wants. 

He shakes his head — lets the fight leave him — why’d he have to get such a dumb best friend? Not that he’d ask for any other. Steve’s the best there is. It kills Bucky that he thinks he’s gotta do more. “Just— don’t do anything stupid until I get back.”

“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”

God, Steve’s always so mouthy. “You’re a punk.”

“Jerk. Be careful.” Bucky’s halfway out of recruiting when Steve calls, “Don’t win the war until I get there!”

And it just makes him laugh, because it’s ridiculous. Bucky comes back, and grabs Steve, envelopes him, feeling Steve’s hair tickle his face, his thin frame until his ill-fitting suit, because he’ll miss this idiot so much when he’s gone.

Steve gives him a squeeze in return, and then he’s releasing Bucky and Bucky bounds back down the steps to where Bonnie and Connie are waiting. 

They dance while the night is young, and Bucky lets that frustration melt away from him in the swirl and mesmerising twirl of the girls’ dresses. Bucky’s in his uniform, and he feels like he stands out in the crowd because of it, marked as something different — there was no way he wouldn’t have been drafted — but sometimes he wishes he didn’t have to go because it’d make Steve feel less bad. 

Who is he kidding? Steve would wanna go out there as well. At least let Bucky watch his back. 

The music is lively and amazing; Stark’s got deep pockets, so it’s no surprise, and Bucky swaps between Connie and Bonnie as the band fills the dancing hall with old timely classics.

He’s sour to find that they’re not very good. Sometimes they miss his cues, and they don’t seem to learn from it. Bucky’s danced with all levels of skill before, and usually it doesn’t irk him, but his mind is still stuck somewhere on Steve and he soon excuses himself for a breath of fresh air. 

He’s sure he can find someone else to dance with. He wants to dance his thoughts away, flood them out with the fast rush of beats and croon of words. He loves music and everything about letting his body swing to it. He loves jazz, and he knows he won’t be able to hear it no more when he gets out there on the front lines. 

The expo is still going strong even though it’s late, huge white glowing back-lit banners illuminating the throngs of people. Bucky looks over out at them, and a passing dame shoots him a longing look just because Bucky’s beautiful. 

“Thought you were gonna dance,” Steve says from beside him, and Bucky startles in surprise. 

“I was,” he says, staring at Steve because he can’t believe — he thought Steve was gonna be at the recruiting building all night. 

“Then let’s dance.”

He looks timeless like this, standing in the median where the golden glow from the dance hall spills and the sterile white lights of the futuristic expo meet. 

Bucky expects them to just enter the hall together and partner with Bonnie and Connie, but Steve takes his right hand — follow, Bucky thinks numbly — and leads him to the floor. 

The rest of the night is a blur; Bucky hasn’t danced with Steve in _years_ because they’re both men and so they both lead, and he finds himself pressed hot and tight to Steve’s side as Steve leads him. There’s no awkwardness to it — Steve’s good, _really_ good, Bucky had noticed it when Steve was dancing but never experienced it against the small of his back, the gentle tug and push of his hand — even though Bucky knows people must be watching them because people don’t _do_ this. Maybe in his uniform, obvious that he’s going to leave soon, they give him some slack, but it’s still wrong on some level.

But people don’t enlist so many times just to get rejected, either, and that’s part of the magic of Steve. He simply doesn’t care what other people think he should he doing, only what _he_ thinks he should, and so Bucky is wrapped up in that self-assured confidence of Steve’s as they take over the floor. Steve doesn’t take his gaze away from Bucky’s face the whole time, swinging Bucky out and catching him when he comes back, turning on his right foot and taking Bucky dizzyingly fast with him, pressing him tight to his chest in a hot flash of intimacy, and they go around, far, connected only by their hands where Bucky can feel the warm life in his fingers and, and then close, breathing each other’s air. 

They dance through songs, and Bucky recalls only this slow, smouldering one where Steve slides a leg between his and rocks them back and forth like that as they turn slowly, and Bucky’s heart leaps into his throat and tries to keep his crotch from grinding into Steve’s belly because Bucky’s hard, doesn’t usually get aroused when he’s dancing but it’s _Steve_, he can’t help it at all. Steve just laughs at him though and then rolls his own hips up against Bucky and _Steve’s hard too_; the realisation sends fire under his skin and makes everything different, the veil that they’re dancing through, the unspoken pretense now, starkly illuminated in his mind, the mutual attraction that can’t be brought to light but only confided in when they’re this close.

Bucky flushes when they swing to the next song. In his mind he’s imagining that he’s a tall girl and that Steve’s teasing him, making him work for it, and at the end of the night they’re gonna go home together but only if Bucky can prove that he’s worthy of Steve’s time on the floor. So Bucky puts his heart into it, a bit rusty as a follow, but Steve matches him move for move until there’s not a still moment between them. Everything is a kick or a sway, a stomp or a fling, and even when they linger, it’s charged with this new, forbidden knowledge. 

When the last song ends, Steve has the gall to _dip_ him. What he lacks in strength he makes up in pure creativity and technique, positioning his feet just right to take Bucky’s weight. Bucky springs up afterwards, laughing, colour high in his cheeks, because Steve is here and sweat-slicked and alive. 

Steve drags him away and in the moving crowd, the huge mass and mess of people, he tugs Bucky closer and — used to following his lead — Bucky presses arm-to-arm to him, Steve turns, raises a hand, cups the side of Bucky’s nose and chin and kisses him quickly and then vanishes into the crowd. 

Bucky stops moving. His heart might as well thunder out of his chest, and he shouts, “_Steve_!” like it’s tearing him apart but doesn’t get an answering cry. 

He knew he wouldn’t get one. That’s the whole purpose of this, meant to be fleeting, meant to be a _maybe_, and meant to be a promise. 

*

_There is a tavern in the town, in the town_

_And there my true love sits him down, sits him down,_

_And drinks his wine as merry as can be,_

_And never, never thinks of me._

_Chorus: Fare thee well, for I must leave thee,_

_Do not let this parting grieve thee,_

_And remember that the best of friends_

_Must part, must part._

_Adieu, adieu kind friends, adieu, adieu, adieu,_

_I can no longer stay with you, stay with you,_

_I'll hang my harp on the weeping willow tree,_

_And may the world go well with thee._

_He left me for a damsel dark, damsel dark,_

_Each Friday night they used to spark, used to spark,_

_And now my love who once was true to me_

_Takes this dark damsel on his knee._

But the words are meaningless, because they’re not true. 

Agent Carter leaves after delivering her message, and Steve’s cordially sent her off. He turns to Bucky, offers his hand.

“Take the floor with me?”

“Always will.”

They tuck in together, Bucky following, placing his left hand on Steve’s bicep. Steve actually _flexes_, and they both laugh. He has to look up, now. He feels small, but it’s a good feeling — makes him feel confident to know that Steve can counterbalance him, and now they can really go wild if Steve wants to pick him up. He wants to try an around the world and aerials and all sorts of flips. Steve can do it now. Excitement bubbles up in him. 

“Actually— wait,” Steve says, looking around. There’s only the Commandos, who won’t care, so Bucky finds himself tugged in and kissed him tightly until they’re both breathless.

“Okay.” He looks happy, flushed. “Now let’s dance.”

**Author's Note:**

> stay tuned for the sequel which will just be pwp of bucky in a USO showgirl outfit lmao 
> 
> also, if you're wondering about the song, ever seen this?
> 
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1bPRotpQDQ>


End file.
